Barricade
by NeonGolden
Summary: #02 Songfic: Barricade - Stars. SLASH! MelloMatt. Mello is drunk and Matt is breaking, wondering when he can leave it behind, he reflects on when he first fell for Mello and why they do what they do. Rated for language.


**21 - Barricade**

Death Note- Matt/Mello  


_Trapped on the terraces, I looked at you and knew  
You were the only thing that mattered  
There was no one for me but you  
In Harmony Street we beat a man  
Just for standing there  
I held my breath as I watched you swing  
Then run your fingers through your hair_

_Oh, how could anyone not love the terrible things you do?  
Oh, how could anyone not want to try and help you?_

_In Bermondsey in Burberry, you held me at the barricade, the pigs arrived with tear gas  
And I wept at the mistakes we made  
We stalked the streets like animals  
And danced as windows shattered  
For our island, for the thrill of it, for everything that mattered_

_Oh, how could anyone not want to rip it all apart?  
Oh, how could anyone not love your cold, black heart?_

_I found you on a Saturday, and that was where I lost you  
You had finally walk away because of what it cost you, years later when I saw your face  
In line to catch the morning train, you looked like you'd been softened  
Like you never really loved the pain_

_Oh, how could anyone not finally diminish?  
The thrill of blood comes instantly  
There's only darkness at the finish_

_Meet me at the barricade, I'll be at the barricade  
Meet me at the barricade, the love died, but the hate can't fade  
I'll be at the barricade, the love died, but the hate won't fade..._

_Stars - Barricade_

* * *

Mello was drunk again. It was hardly even something that needed to be said anymore, the initial surprise and anger that his stuttered speech and staggering steps had at first inspired had dwindled into the mundane, nothing but acceptance and boredom. It wasn't every night anymore, like it had been last month, or the month before, whenever he was just well enough to get out of the house after the accident. That had been less than fun, 4am every damn night, puking and arguing and on some occasions bleeding. It had been better these last few weeks, Mello had got the work bug again, deep in some scheme that Matt hardly comprehended and didn't care to. He did what Mello said, despite his better judgment. That was his role, the part he played, and it always had been. Matt knew himself well enough to know he didn't do change. This time he had heard him opening the door, the key fumbling in the lock for stupidly long, simply because he was still awake anyway and listening for him, in bed but more awake than he ever was during the day. Mello's footsteps in the hallway were alternately loud and quiet as though he was actually trying not to wake him up. Matt was suspicious straight away, but it was only after he had reached the kitchen that Matt realised that this surreptitiousness was because Mello wasn't alone. He stiffened in his bed, clutching the sheets in his fists in anger. It was stupid and hugely pointless to be irritated with Mello. Mello could out-anger the world; he was text-book anger-management with a gun and a grin, taking Matt's own insignificant emotions and twisting them into something completely different and unwanted . He could hear, through the darkness and past the background noise of the city – sirens and dogs and club music drifting down on the wind, the sound of cupboard doors opening and a bottle clinking heavily and unsteadily against a glass. There was quiet for a while and then a kind of shuffling thud that made the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. Something in his chest was knotted, he felt as though his head was pressurised and full of water. He wanted nothing more than to get up, whirlwind downstairs and break whoever Mello was fucking down there, smash him and throw him into the street, but somehow no movement would happen. So he lay and fumed and listened, wishing all the time that he could stop.

It was almost an interesting psychological study, this thing he and Mello had going. A kind of violent adoration and hatred, intertwined with the work, always the work. They cooperated, so used to one another's presence that there was hardly any communication needed, and then later on a combination of sober stony silence and bitter drunken screaming broke that unspoken understanding. Mostly Mello was the one screaming, and mostly he was the one who was drunk. Matt knew there could be no other way; some deep hidden part of him hated that. Above all he thought it was ridiculous. Mello was a storm; Matt was practical, mathematical, and together they broke each other. He never got used to that, turbulent relationships were something that happened to other people – or maybe never happened at all – while what he and Mello did was nothing but fumbling in the dark and Mello's uncontrolled fury crashing against Matt's walls.

It had been summer when Matt had fallen for him, and a Saturday. He knew it was a Saturday because the club they were outside had a sign written on the inside of the window in someone's horrible handwriting saying it was Saturday Night Fever, they were even playing the song interminably like some kind of bad joke. It would have been romantic if it hadn't been 2am and Mello hadn't been smashing some bastard's face into the back of his head. Okay, maybe not romantic, but neon lights had lit up Mello's hair pink and green and he was almost animated by it, beautiful. The flickering lights made his face look strange and demonic, one side twisted into deformity by the scars and the other bright and amazing, an animal acting on perfect instinct. Matt had thought right then that all he needed was a coin with one side scarred up and he'd be Two-Face, spinning chance to figure out his victim's fate. But Mello would have hated that and anyway he never left anything to fate. This guy, whoever he was, was in his way, and Matt was only there to drive the damn car and hold Mello up when he fell into a post-insane-violence trance that left him lost, strange, otherworldly.

The guy was begging, _oh no please, I never meant it, _but Mello was too far gone, imprinting lines in his face with the barrel of his gun. He stayed standing for too long, so when he fell it was like a demolished building, straight down without warning. Mello ran his fingers through his hair, there was blood on his hands that clumped it together and left one side of his hair dreadlocked and sticky against his scars. When he turned back to Matt he was horrific and beautiful and Matt held his breath until Mello curled his lip up and hissed:  
"Fuck outa here," before grabbing his arm and dragging him back to the car. They had some purpose there that Matt knew was unfinished, but Mello was ferocious and sick now, in no state to get anything done. They went, Matt driving back to their shithole apartment in silence, Mello fuming and fidgeting in the passenger seat. They had burned together that night, something so alien to Matt that he wondered if had really happened at all. That ferocious, tearing, blazing love that shot up and disappeared again had left a mark on Matt that refused to go away, a brand so clean and vivid he was constantly amazed that Mello couldn't see it glowing on his body every time he looked at him.

That was why it pissed him off so much when Mello got drunk and brought back some jerk, as though it wasn't obvious it stabbed at him, as though it wasn't cruelty. Maybe Mello did it because of that; he liked messing things up, watching things break, it got him some kind of thrill. And because that was how Mello got his kicks, Matt stayed out of it until he gave up and accepted him back into his arms anyway. It was a kind of game, really. Matt wanted, sickeningly, to see inside Mello's head, inside that cold black heart to the human being frozen in there somewhere, a brilliant gem stone in the dirt. He never would. He only watched Mello break things and fly on the thrill of it, let him fuck strangers and drink into oblivion and laugh in his face like it was fucking funny to destroy everything, to destroy the only person who probably really cared about him. Then at the finish, every time, he tangled his fingers in Mello's hair when the darkness set in, let him choke out the misery and self-hatred, so that they could start their dance all over again. That way there was no healing, only a void of scar tissue ripped apart and sewn back together again, endlessly. It was comforting, in a way, and Matt didn't like change.

But it was still that night when things changed. The murmur of voices stopped, soft sounds that made Matt's stomach crawl, and rose into Mello's voice, unclear but suddenly furious. Footsteps again, only running and noisy, a crash. The door opened and there was a momentary rise in the sound of the night as air overflowed into the apartment, and then it slammed and Mello was walking up the short flight of stairs to Matt's room. He opened the door with a kind of clumsy awkwardness, stood by Matt's bed and hovered there while Matt's pulse raced.  
"Matt?"  
His voice was still slurring and stinking, alcohol and confusion. There was a sudden rush, a grappling of sheets and surprise, drunken determination struggling against Matt's half hearted resistance, and Mello was astride his chest. Lips pressed together, cigarette smoke curling around vodka, shattering and impossible. Matt wondered if he would ever breathe again. Mello didn't rise then, only laid his cheek against Matt's and spilled words in his ear, soft and strange, hardly his voice at all.  
"Do you love me, Matt?"  
Matt raised his eyes to the ceiling, a spattering of lights from the open window, a breeze stirring the halo of blonde hair that lay tickling his face. There was nothing but air and wonder, the feel of Mello's ruined skin against his own and the heat of breath against his ear.

In the morning Mello had gone, a message on the answering machine told him curtly an address to go to. Matt was a decoy, again, Mello the main attraction. He wondered vaguely when he would walk away from it, when the love would be cold compared to the hatred, the destruction. Maybe never. Maybe when it did it would be too late. The world outside the apartment was the same as the day before, the same as every other day, but Matt could sense the difference in the air. Mello had walked away from him, from the unanswered question that had cost him too much. It was a Saturday. Mello was the only thing that mattered and he was nothing now but a mirror, shattered down the middle.


End file.
